The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to an optimizer mechanism to increase battery length for mobile devices.
Reducing energy consumption in data processing system operations is becoming an increasingly important requirement. Energy saving is a very important issue due to environmental impact and to increasing costs. Furthermore, risks and costs related to energy supply interruption (blackout) caused by high consumption and excessive requests by the users must be taken into account.
One area in which energy consumption is of great importance is with regard to battery power of portable devices, such as mobile telephones, laptop computers, and the like. Often it occurs that a user may be operating their portable device, e.g., a laptop, and may need to perform certain operations but may not have the reserve battery power to complete these operations. For example, a user may need to use the laptop computer to present a plurality of slides as part of a presentation to other persons yet may not have sufficient battery power to operate the laptop computer for the entire time of the presentation. While the laptop computer may be plugged into a wall socket in order to have a constant supply of electrical power, there are often times where such a source of electrical power is not available. Thus, the user, not having enough battery power to run the laptop computer for the entire time to complete the presentation, and not having access to a wall socket or other constant source of electrical power, will not be able to complete the presentation or other operations for which the portable device, e.g., laptop computer, is required.
In a data processing system it is known to monitor the consumption of individual hardware devices and to apply some correction actions in order to optimize the total power consumption of the data processing system. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,197,652 discloses a mechanism for energy management in a multithread data processing system. The method provides per-device usage evaluators within performance monitor units which monitor the use of connected hardware devices. However power consumption may also depend on the way the hardware devices are used. For example, power consumption may depend on the software applications being run on the system and on the software and hardware resources used by the applications.